Difference between revisions of "Liveness"

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(Television: A Case Study in the Death of Liveness)
(Death of the Live)
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Compared to other modes of mediation, liveness is less manageable. A performance one night may be longer than the next; a performer can make a mistake or intentionally cause problems; and technological failure or other forces outside the performers can interfere with the intent of the representation. There is an uncertainty to liveness that disappears when one begins recording events and making them more easily manipulable and controllable.
 
Compared to other modes of mediation, liveness is less manageable. A performance one night may be longer than the next; a performer can make a mistake or intentionally cause problems; and technological failure or other forces outside the performers can interfere with the intent of the representation. There is an uncertainty to liveness that disappears when one begins recording events and making them more easily manipulable and controllable.
  
==Death of the Live==
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==Death and Retroactive Definitions==
  
 
Liveness is experiencing a long and slow death that began with the written word and has continued into broadcast technologies and internet communications. In fact, the very acknowledgement of liveness as a mode of mediation is suggestive of its dying nature. Until there was an alternative to liveness there was no concept of live. It was just a speech or a concert. Live is now often used as a retronym made necessary to distinguish it from the alternatives that have developed throughout time. The problem here is not so much arguing the deadness of liveness, it is rather to justify liveness as a mode of mediation as in many respects it is the lack of mediation that is being displaced by new and creative ways to mediate all forms of communication.
 
Liveness is experiencing a long and slow death that began with the written word and has continued into broadcast technologies and internet communications. In fact, the very acknowledgement of liveness as a mode of mediation is suggestive of its dying nature. Until there was an alternative to liveness there was no concept of live. It was just a speech or a concert. Live is now often used as a retronym made necessary to distinguish it from the alternatives that have developed throughout time. The problem here is not so much arguing the deadness of liveness, it is rather to justify liveness as a mode of mediation as in many respects it is the lack of mediation that is being displaced by new and creative ways to mediate all forms of communication.

Revision as of 22:49, 25 April 2010

The quality or condition (of an event, performance, etc.) of being heard, watched, or broadcast at the time of occurrence.

There are two aspects of liveness: temporal and spatial, i.e. experiencing while it happens vs. being where it happens. Liveness can thus apply to the concept of being seated in the same theater as a production of a play, or watching a sporting event taking place on the other side of the country. The definition above, offered by the Oxford English Dictionary, focuses more on the temporal, however the two are in many ways intertwined. The idea of being in the same place at the same time as the production of a communication message is growing increasingly antiquated. While it could be argued that day-to-day interactions are also losing their liveness (consider self check-out lines and the ease of ordering things on the internet), it is constructed, performance-oriented activities that are most affected.

Attributes & Characteristics

Types of Liveness and Examples
Spatially Live Spatially Live
Temporally Live Attending a concert, sporting event, theater Watching sporting events on TV
Temporally Live Pilgrimages to Holy Site A recorded television episode

Liveness dates back to the beginning of humanity, or at the very least, in the case of sports and other aspects of performance, since ancient Egypt. It includes everything from interaction between two people to 50,000 spectators watching gladiatorial battles at the Colosseum. Despite its prevalence throughout history, however, it is difficult to discuss liveness without looking at what it is not.

Liveness is the absence of writing. It is the encoding and decoding happening at the same moment. Another attribute of liveness is difference. One could see the same play with the same cast three nights in a row and see a different show each time. Unlike recorded or written work which is the same words or images each time one looks at it, liveness offers a unique presentation each time. This version of pops and hisses gives liveness a certain ethereal, magical quality. When viewing something, the spectator becomes a part of the experience in a way unlike viewers of recorded, more static content. Of course, liveness also brings with it a risk. If things are different enough in a live performance it can change the message or cause other problems.

Compared to other modes of mediation, liveness is less manageable. A performance one night may be longer than the next; a performer can make a mistake or intentionally cause problems; and technological failure or other forces outside the performers can interfere with the intent of the representation. There is an uncertainty to liveness that disappears when one begins recording events and making them more easily manipulable and controllable.

Death and Retroactive Definitions

Liveness is experiencing a long and slow death that began with the written word and has continued into broadcast technologies and internet communications. In fact, the very acknowledgement of liveness as a mode of mediation is suggestive of its dying nature. Until there was an alternative to liveness there was no concept of live. It was just a speech or a concert. Live is now often used as a retronym made necessary to distinguish it from the alternatives that have developed throughout time. The problem here is not so much arguing the deadness of liveness, it is rather to justify liveness as a mode of mediation as in many respects it is the lack of mediation that is being displaced by new and creative ways to mediate all forms of communication.

Television: A Case Study in the Death of Liveness

The introduction of broadcasting was not the beginning of the demise of liveness, but it has been the nail in the coffin, so to speak. Broadcasting is, by nature, a medium based on spatial distance between those who are encoding and the (larger) group involved in decoding. In some respects this was the first step away from liveness in that it disconnected viewers from the concert hall or theater but allowed them to see and/or hear entertainment across great distances as the events were happening. There was a lot of rhetoric promoting this spatial distanciation as an admirable aspect of broadcasting. It allowed greater proliferation of "great art" and could introduce such work to people who might not otherwise ever know about it. Although lack of spatial liveness is intrinsic to the mediums of radio and television, broadcast's relationship with temporal liveness has altered greatly throughout history.

From the dawn of radio through the early days of television, liveness was considered a marker of quality. It was considered to be the thing that set radio and television apart from film or recorded music and thus was highly praised. The stress placed on liveness is evident in early discussions of television and advertisements. Part of this is tied to notions of authenticity. Live programming is more real. It is coming directly from the sources, whether they be sporting events or theatrical productions or musical performances. It was real, uncensored, unmediated content.

Of course, despite the enthusiasm for live programming, from very early on much of the programming was recorded and as time passed it became the norm. There were a number of reasons for the eventual transition to recorded programming, including financial, industrial, and technological factors, however all of the reasons pertain to certain aspects of liveness.

For one, if something is live it is only visible once. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but it limits those who can see it, and it is difficult (or impossible) to view it again. Also, as mentioned earlier, there is a risk inherent in liveness. Anything can happen which can be good. Exciting things can happen, particularly in live sporting events, which give people a sense of being in community together having experienced it at the same time. But liveness can also facilitate less ideal material. For broadcasting this has led to most programming, even live programs, being delayed for a few seconds to allow producers to censor material if need be. It also becomes difficult to standardize things in live television. It is difficult to insure time will be regulated properly. Participating in live performances can also be very tiring, making it more difficult to repeat events or perform repeatedly in different functions without adequate breaks.

Today on television and radio there is very little that is live. Recorded music fills radio time and scripted, recorded and edited work fill the TV schedule, and even that is beginning to be removed one more level from temporal and spatial liveness. Often now people discuss "watching something live" when they mean to say "watch as it is being broadcast" rather than recording it for later viewing or accessing the material online or through some other avenue. Also, many things that were once broadcast live are being recorded and played back a more financially lucrative time. NBC's decision to tape-delay popular Olympic events is an example of the failure of liveness' role as the dominant paradigm of the day.

Reappropriating Liveness